Mardi Gras Ice Cream

As a food blogger I feel obligated to present a dish on Fat Tuesday. I’ve never really celebrated Mardi Gras in all it’s glory and never had a King’s Cake until a few weeks ago when a coworker brought one into the office. As luck would have it I found the plastic baby – which means I’m responsible for bringing in next year’s cake. Unfortunately for them we’ll have moved to Ohio by then. So I thought I’d bake a treat and bring it in this year. And of course blog about it – two birds, one stone.

I was hoping to find something simple and these King’s Cake Bars caught my eye. Unfortunately my execution of said bars was abysmal. I think I over mixed the dough for the base and I managed to forget both the vanilla and cinnamon in the cream cheese filling. I used a smaller casserole dish than recommended so my baking time was considerably longer (2x as long!) and came out domed which caused the glaze to run down to the sides of the casserole dish. But, it did flatten out once it cooled. And even though I sprayed the pan and the dough is almost half butter it would not come up.

After the frustration subsided, I thought it’d be fun to make an ice cream. The cream cheese filling reminded me of cheese cake (cream cheese, egg, sugar) so I decided to try a cheese cake ice cream base with cinnamon. I garnished the ice cream with purple, green, and yellow sprinkles to play up the holiday. (I was too nervous to stir sprinkles into the ice cream machine for fear of resulting in streaky brown coloring.)

I have to admit, I was worried I messed up this recipe too. I used too small of a pot and didn’t temper the eggs enough so my custard had a few lumps. But, I decided to strain it and keep going. I’m glad I did because this ice cream is so delicious – it’s rich and creamy with great flavor from the cinnamon.

Cinnamon Cheese Cake Ice Cream

Ingredients:

2 C half-and-half

1/2 C heavy whipping cream

1 C milk

1 1/4 C sugar

2 eggs

8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature and cubed

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp ground cinnamon

Steps:

Heat the half-and-half, cream, and milk in a large saucepan over medium heat until it reaches 175 degrees F, but do not let boil. Whisk in sugar until dissolved.

In a small bowl whisk eggs. Take about 1/4 C of the hot milk mixture and whisk into eggs to temper them. Constantly whisking, add eggs to milk. Cook over low heat, whisking, until the mixture thickens and reaches 160 degrees F.

Pour custard through a fine strainer (I opted to line mine with a coffee filter, but I don’t think it was necessary) into a glass bowl. Whisk in the cream cheese until melted and smooth.

Place the bowl of custard in a bowl of ice water to cool and stir for two minutes. (Don’t let the water into the custard.) Stir in vanilla and cinnamon. Remove from ice bath, cover, and place in fridge overnight.